Power player

Building a basic netbook these days seems to be a straightforward enough proposition to pull off — throw in an Intel Atom processor, 1GB RAM, a roomy hard disk and Windows 7 Starter, and you could be talking about just about any netbook from Acer, Asus, Dell and the others. So what differentiates the latest Wind U160 netbook from the folks at MSI? For starters, there’s a battery life that will give you company on all but the longest long-haul flights — in everyday use, it lasted well over the eight-hour mark, and the Eco Engine setting lets you pick various power-saving modes based on what you’re using the U160 for, like watching a movie or working on a spreadsheet.

The added longevity comes at a price, though. The battery is massive, and sticks out from the bottom of the chassis like a kickstand, which means it sits a little raised on the desk. It doesn’t look half bad though — the stylish chiclet keyboard, a choice of brown or black covers with a glowing MacBook-like MSI logo, the VAIO-esque side power button along the spine and the thin form-factor are all part of the U160’s award-winning design.

For a change, that wasn’t the usual company hyperbole — the U160 did win the iF Product Design Award for 2010. Sadly though, the touch pad was a tad unimpressive, with its tiny raised dots in the wrist rest, but that may be down to personal choice. As was the 10.1-in wide-screen display, which had a bog-standard 1,024x600-pixel native resolution, at a price too close to HD-display netbooks for comfort, especially those that ship with twice the amount of memory.

• Rating: 7/10
• Price: Rs 23,999
• URL: http://bit.ly/dD0ku2" http://bit.ly/dD0ku2

Silver lining

Is your new netbook crawling under the dead-weight of Windows? Give it a fresh lease of life with Jolicloud, a free Linux-based operating system designed specifically for the low-powered components most netbooks ship with these days.

You can choose to either install it alongside Windows, which will give you an option when you boot your PC to use Jolicloud. Or you could install it onto a flash/USB drive, and boot from it whenever you want to use Jolicloud. I’d recommend the former option — it leaves your Windows installation untouched, allowing you run back to your Windows-only software whenever you need to. It installs in a similar manner to any regular Windows software, which means you can uninstall it as easily.

That is, of course, if you ever want to return to Windows once you install Jolicloud. I’ve got version 1.0 running on a Sony VAIO W netbook for some time now, and you can pretty much do everything on this that you would have done on Windows. The basic install comes with a dozen or so programs already installed, applications for Facebook, Gmail, Twitter Google Docs etc, but if you need more, there is a library of hundreds more for you to download — all free and legal, of course. It also has a ton of social-media features built into the operating system, and there is a great mixture of Cloud (web-based) and native applications found in Jolicloud. But for me, the biggest draw is the interface. It is speedy and fun to use, and is rather intuitive so most folks should be at home with it within a couple of days. If you own a netbook, give Jolicloud a try — the speed benefits alone make it worth its while!

• Rating: 8/10
• Price: Free
• URL: http://bit.ly/9h3Mv8" http://bit.ly/9h3Mv8

Playing safe

2011 is still a while off, but the folks at Kaspersky Labs aren’t taking their chances with the Internet bad guys with a 2011 ready Internet Security suite! So you get an anti-virus component that checks emails using plug-ins for Outlook, a web browser component that checks for malicious internet traffic and a firewall that stops unauthorised access onto your PC.

I quite like a couple of features, such as the “Safe Run for Websites” feature which lets you run your browser in a protected mode that prevents malware from snooping on your web traffic and any data cached on your PC. Particularly useful when you don’t want anyone but you accessing your information, like a bank site for example. Just point it to the URL of your bank and it will automatically open a “safe” browser whenever you go there. There’s even a system roll-back tool which can undo the damage done by viruses by restoring files from their pre-virus backups.

The product itself is easy to use, just as long as you allow it do all of these actions automatically, because under the hood is a ton of customisations, almost labyrin-thine in their complexity. If you’re the sort who loves to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty with complex software to protect your PC, this is manna from heaven for you. This baby has all the bells and whistles you could wish for.

• Rating: 8/10
• Price: Rs 899
• URL: http://bit.ly/a9TUe3


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